The scene around her faded and softer images consumed her mind’s eye. Visions of fields of flowers and cascades of golden sunlight filled her consciousness. Her mother was there, twirling happily in her beautiful long white dress. The sun’s light was never so magnificent as when it gleamed from her mother’s face, her eyes, her every aspect. The air when filled with mom’s laughter sang such sweet songs to Tonya. Tonya was there, just a toddler at the time, skipping and chasing after her mom as they stirred the butterflies and insects among the flowers. The smell of that day was so strong that its aroma transcended all of space and time and smelled just as real to her that night as it had all those years ago. She inhaled carefully and let the faintest of smiles creep across her painted lips. Fourteen long years were lost, years that had twisted and reshaped their lives in more ways than Tonya could even recall.

Tears welled in Tonya’s eyes as she looked up from her adolescence into the beaming smile of joy of her mother’s face. She felt the heat of her tears on her cheek and snapped back to reality. She’d only ever before reserved that memory for quiet times in her locked bedroom, but now, crying, in front of daddy! She panicked. Shame and fear flooded her, her smile faded with the summer scene. She looked quickly back and forth over the room, meeting eyes with her brother David, a twisted look of anger on his face. She saw her dad, eyes glaring and cheeks puffy and red as he leaned over the end of the table. Neither of them had noticed her. She snatched up her napkin and dried her tears quietly.

Her skewered hot dog lay beside her plate, the handle of the fork attached hanging perilously over the edge of the table. She stealthily reached for the fork, returned it to its original position in front of her. The yelling and screaming lessened. That usually meant that dad had taken enough and had ended the battle of words, victorious as always. Tonya couldn’t understand why David yelled like that. The results were always the same. Perhaps he was uncomfortably too much like dad. Thinking of that filled Tonya with a fear deeper than anything mortal. Being unseen and unnoticed was so much better. When would David ever learn that? Or had David started to…no, that couldn’t be. They had made promises!

Tonya held her impaled prisoner up to eye level, turned it again, and it broke in half. “No!” she screamed to herself. Both halves of the traitorous thing slapped onto the table then rolled off onto the floor before Tonya could catch them. She looked up. Her father had noticed. She lowered her eyes in the breathless still of that moment. She hated how he looked at her, his eyes mocking and horribly dearth of feeling. Her eyes wanted so badly to fill with tears again. She ducked under the table and rapidly collected the food back to her plate.

“Sorry,” she said hushedly. She could barely hear her father when he asked if she wanted another. She wanted him far from her, wanted to shove him away in whatever way she could. Her stomach burned and ached with anxiety and fear.

“It’s okay, I’m full anyway,” she said, assuming what he must have asked her. She stood slowly from the table. She felt like a timid rabbit backing into its hole in fear of slaughter from a slavering nearby predator; the absolute fear, the thunderous fulmination of its heart about to burst, every tiny scuffling noise a betrayal of its hiding place. Tonya regained her composure, mentally willed her hands to stop trembling, cleaned her place at the table then with the grace of a Queen in formal garb, she retired her things to the kitchen.

The kitchen was closed off from the dining room by a swinging door. She breathed again. She emptied her plate into the garbage can and set it gently in the sink, trying with all her skill to make no sound at all. Her calculated motions, every sound guarded in excess, were maddening to watch. At night she dreamt of her mom, of those sun-soaked fields and hills, of a freedom she’d not known since her mom had left them. Tonya wanted to cry, just explode in a cascade of tears and emotion and run screaming from life into the clear blue sky where she would be free of everything. But that could be fatal. She could show no weakness, not now. She would save that for when she was alone, or in bed at night with soft music playing and the rest of the house asleep.

As she stood there, staring at the empty kitchen sink, her mind turned again to David. The fights had really started only a month or so ago. They seemed to be about nothing at all, yet both he and dad seemed to take them very seriously. This came really as no surprise. Dad was a man that demanded respect and expected control and discipline. “David knows better,” she whispered to herself. He knew not to anger or challenge dad. They both knew. They had both learned so many hard lessons from him. Why was David doing? David was only two years old when mom had left them and hadn’t heard the screaming and the fighting between her and dad. He didn’t know anything of those times, nor had he really gotten the chance to know mom. Regardless, he did know the consequences of his most recent actions. Every day since he had started yelling at dad they had both paid the price.

Noises from the dining room of chairs scooting and plates and forks rattling alerted Tonya to the approach of the two men. She had to think of David as a man now. He was Sixteen, dating, forcing his authority as a new adult on everyone around him every chance he could. In his heart he was still not strong enough to win his battles with dad, though. Maybe that was why he fought him every night now, Tonya conjectured. “He wants to win against dad as much as I want to feel free again.” David was not as imprisoned as Tonya was by their life, but still she lamented that he had never known mom or the bliss of freedom she herself had indulged in as a little girl.

Though it was only a small comfort, a sigh of relief came to Tonya’s heart when she decided that David was not giving in or fighting dad just to hurt her. He was trying to assert control of his own life now. The politics of their lives were so delicate, perhaps founded on love, but from the outside they seemed tenacious and filled with animosity.

The men entered the kitchen, both deathly quiet. Their battle was over for today and a contorted look or innocence and sorrow had settled upon David’s face. Tonya looked at him, trying to communicate volumes to him with her eyes. He looked away, and followed dad to the sink to deposit his dish and utensils with the rest. The tension in the air was like electricity. Tonya could feel it singeing the fine hair on her arms.

Tonya opened the tap on the sink and had just begun to wash the dishes when Wookie started barking outside. Perhaps he had felt the tension building too. Wookie always seemed to bark whenever things were boiling or painful in the house. Tonya didn’t need to hear dad’s command to know what she had to do now. She dried her hands, went to the kitchen closet, took out her old comfortable jacket and a bag of dog food, then left the house through the back door in a small enclosed porch behind the kitchen.

Wookie was across the night yard, panting and wagging his tail excitedly when he saw Tonya coming with his food. Tonya smiled and cooed to Wookie as she made her way to the end of his chain. She set the dog food down, threw on her jacket, and plopped down on the ground next to her best friend. Wookie slobbered all over her, as always, nuzzled her face and danced around her in a glee only known to dogs. He always did that. Insane as it was to think such things, Tonya always felt there might even be a bit of mom in Wookie. Dad had brought Wookie home only a few days after mom left, for companionship, protection, Tonya was unsure. But from the day he had arrived as a little puppy, he had been Tonya’s most cherished friend in the world. He was there whenever she needed someone to listen to her dreams, her hopes and struggles. He was there every time she needed a playmate. He was always there for her.

Tonya rubbed the old dog’s head, slapped and patted his sides until he calmed down and lay down next to her. She ruffled the fur at the nape of his neck, and sailed off into quaint dreams, smiled at the cold white stars in the night sky above them as they winked flirtatiously at her. “Why can’t everything feel like this, Wookie? Good and right…” she asked. Wookie stirred under her caressing hand. It saddened her sometimes to think that her beautiful Wookie might not live much longer. He was old for a Saint Bernard; big, fat, and lazy. She loved him more than anyone or anything else in her world. She couldn’t conceive of life without Wookie as a part of it.

Winter was coming to a close around them. Most of the snow had melted, churning the ground into an adobe of old dried grass and thick mud. The trees surrounding their property were still black and void of spring’s greenery. Tonya sighed, looked at her feet. She had never known a social life fuller than isolation. Dad had always told her not to associate with the other girls at school as they were a bad influence. Threats of his wrath more than sufficed to keep her loyal to his command. She had only Wookie, dad, and David in her society. Most of the girls at school avoided her like the plague anyway. She heard them mocking her, hatefully behind her back. Nothing needed to be wrong or strange or awkward for them to attack her; only her presence was necessary.

She was a portrait of everything beautiful in an eighteen year old girl. The face of an angel, dad liked to tell her, just like your mother’s. Tonya wished mom could be there to see how she had blossomed into womanhood. It was all that made her feel good about herself was to know that her mom’s beauty lived on with her. She despaired however that mom’s free spirit was not a part of her. Dad picked all of her clothes for her, always dresses, always with the hem below the knee, and always unflatteringly conservative. Tonya had no difficulty attracting the attention of boys, her slender figure and ample hips and breasts establishing her as a prime target. She turned them all down, of course, even at the expense of being called a cold bitch. They didn’t understand. “Boys will never understand!” had become her mantra.

Tonya got up and brushed herself off a bit. She would have to shower now, but unconditional love was worth it. She giggled and played with Wookie’s ears before dumping out some food and walking back to the house. The cold of night had cast a sheen of scintillating ice across the melted snow in the yard. She marveled at the shimmering moon mirrored perfectly in its cold, glassy surface. So pretty, she thought. She would have to try to keep the memory of that moment in her mind for as long as she could. Happiness was made of such small things. The back door creaked open, and she stepped inside to warmth and querulous seclusion. The instant the stale air within filled her lungs, tears threatened to return with despair.

Inside, the men had separated. David was obviously in his room upstairs as the sound of heavy metal music splintering the walls poured down through the whole house. Dad was in his chair relaxing and watching Jeopardy on television. Funny, Tonya thought. As controlling as dad is, he so easily accepts certain things into his tolerance, like the loudness of David’s music, or my friendship with Wookie. Dad was a very intelligent man, and very protecting of his little girl. He worked long, difficult hours to provide for David and her. His salaries as a surgeon for the Joseph’s Hospital served them all well.

Tonya kept still in the dark near his recliner. She knew all too well that this sate moment would not last. David and she would have to pay for David’s indiscretions at dinner before the night was through. She shuddered, and swept off quietly to the upstairs shower, listening to dad mocking the “idiots” on TV as she retreated. Once upstairs, she undressed and tossed her dirty things into the hamper outside the bathroom. She started the water for her shower, checked her face in the bathroom mirror as she waited for the temperature to even out. She was a muddy wreck, but even that could not hide the glow of the soft, lovely features she shared with her mom. She smiled and giggled at herself, then slid cautiously into the shower.

The steamy water felt wonderful against her skin. She envisioned all of the problems and stresses of the day melting and flowing in streams down her form, into the shower drain, lost and gone forever, like the mud she was washing from herself. This would be her last safe haven for the day. The metal music David chose to hide behind was his escape. She would indulge herself in the final pleasantries of the evening without haste. Tonya washed herself thoroughly, hesitant to leave the shower. The rushing water all around her was like her shield. Once the water was shut off, she would be demure and vulnerable again. She dreaded the coming of the night.

Tonya took several deep breaths before shutting the shower water off. The cleansing feeling of it left her as night’s clouds flee the harsh sunrise. She stepped from the shower, dried herself and her hair with a large beach towel. She tossed her long raven locks side to side then combed them to perfection. She wrapped herself in her pastel yellow bathrobe, tied it at the waist, and ventured out from her quiet sanctuary. She felt like a pawn must when preparing itself to be sacrificed.

David’s music stopped abruptly, and she heard dad’s voice. Her heart leapt into her throat. She could feel it pounding at the base of her neck. She wrapped her arms around herself and cringed. He had started early tonight. She stood alone in her room, cocooning herself in layer upon layer of reserve. Loathing grew inside her as dad launched into a tirade outside her door. Dad yelled for her. She gasped, clutching at her bathrobe. She knew better than to keep him waiting, so she ran swiftly out into the hallway where she found dad holding David by his throat. She stifled her tears and fought back the look of fear trying to creep across her face. Dad screamed at David, but this time things were different, more violent. Tonya became frightened, not knowing what dad was going to do. There was a look in dad’s eyes she hadn’t seen for a very long time. She felt her knees wobble and tremble. The scene began to blur. The words dad was screaming melted into one another. Bits and pieces of the conflagration broke through to her as she tried in vane to block all of it out. Dad was tired of the fighting. Tonight was the end of it, once and for all, and he was going to make certain of it.

Tonya couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Dad was insane with rage. He flung David bodily down the hall slamming him into her. She wasn’t ready for the force of his impact, and they both plummeted to the hard wood floor. Tonya’s robe opened partially in the fall. Her hair pulled beneath her weight as she skidded to a stop. She yelped in pain. David was on top of her, dad looming over the both of them with a maniacal look etched into his features that forced a scream of terror from Tonya. He put his foot on David’s back and stepped into it with all his weight, like he was trying to crush the both of them together. David’s face was a mesh of agony and frustration as he struggled to get up, but dad’s angry force was too much for him to overcome in his weakened condition. Tonya tried to help but was still coughing and winded from the fall.

Dad leaned over the two of them, putting even more pressure on David’s lower back. Tonya wanted to scramble away from this, to break free and hide forever in the darkest recess of some secret bower. She started crying uncontrollably. This wasn’t right. This was not what was supposed to happen. Tonya grunted, to no avail struggling to wriggle free of the two men on top of her. In the chaos, Tonya saw dad punching David in the back of his head. Each time his face slammed into her chest forcing the air out of her lungs. She was crying, coughing, pleading to dad to stop. He ignored her, seeming to take pleasure in her begging him.

Words rang in Tonya’s ears, sounds that echoed faintly as if they had crossed endless void to reach her. Slowly they filled her mind, and her every layer of resolve collapsed. Sex…her…, the sounds stammered, or… kill you both…here. David’s head slammed into her chest again, was being smeared there by dad’s hand. “Stop!” Tonya screamed, “God, no, please, stop this daddy!”

A hard fist to David’s ribs was his reply to her. She could almost hear David’s ribs crackling from the hit. “No!” she screamed again. “Please…” her voice trailed off into a tremulous whimper.

Dad undaunted by emotion or sympathy ripped and pulled at David’s pants and underwear until they were at the boy’s knees. Tonya felt her brother’s nakedness rubbing against her exposed legs forcing her terror and disgust into new levels. She was frantic, had to stop this somehow. She heard dad coercing David, screaming at him to get started or else. For a moment Tonya saw David’s face. He was crying, not from pain but from the same embarrassment and fear that was also consuming her. His eyes were glazed over, perhaps hiding in his own mind.

She felt dad hammering David’s back and she screamed again, “Stop! Please, don’t do this!” She got no response from dad. He was gone, determined to prove his sadistic point to David through this most adverse of violations. Was it to humiliate him, Tonya questioned? Was daddy trying to destroy us? Why? “Why?” she cried aloud.

David succumbed, tried to position himself on top of his sister while taking slap after slap to the side of his head from dad’s enraged beating. Tears cascading from his eyes, David tried to whisper to Tonya through quivering lips, but his words fell away. He sobbed as he poised himself to enter Tonya, his own sister. Dear God, his own sister! He screamed as loud as he could in anguish. Tonya trembled, a maddening fear gripping her. She had to fight not to vomit at even the thought of what was about to happen. Everything she had ever believed in was wiping clean in the turmoil of this one repugnant act. Dad had to hear her. One last time, “Why, daddy?” Dad ignored her, continued to urge a confused and semi-conscious David on to his ultimate disgrace.

Tonya felt David touch her and begin to enter her. All of her shook violently hoping to inch away from him. He had gotten himself hard, for the sake of self-preservation, by pain, by some way that escaped Tonya’s understanding. He was still sobbing, hiding his face as best he could from his sister’s terrified face. Tonya felt panic pulling at her heart. She couldn’t stop this. Even if she could, they were dead. Images began attacking her like blurs rushing insanely through every chamber of her mind at once. Was she going crazy? She had no recourse, no solution, no way to escape. Her rage and despair turned to irrationality.

There was no freedom left for her anymore. She could almost hear her mom crying as she watched her daughter’s body outlive its soul.

“Daddy,” she said softly, “this isn’t right,” and paused to compose her words. “I’m for you, daddy…not David.” Tonya looked up from the floor, exhausted and horrified. She had done it. She had revealed their darkest secret. David looked at Tonya, the fire of absolute madness in his eyes. She stared back at him tiredly, afraid. Her brother was seething with rage. Dad looked at her incredulously. Tonya had never known such fear as she received from dad’s glare at that moment. The intensity of it burned straight through her. She had no other option now. Perhaps she was already dead, but this had to be enough; just enough to stop this.

David tried to scramble free in a rush of adrenaline, but with a heavy knee to his lower back dad quickly forced him back down before he could get started. Inadvertently David pushed into his sister’s vagina. Tonya screamed in agony, nearly lost consciousness as dry, searing pain ripped through her entire body. Everything was going black. She felt the force of dad’s blows now even further enraged through David. It wasn’t enough. She heard dad screaming at her names for her that could never come from a heart that loved her. She felt the grind of her hips against David’s, the pressure on her groin from dad’s weight on David’s spine. Pain welled inside her like the back-draft of a raging inferno. She had been torn and could feel it pulling apart more and more with every thrust of their forced incest.

Darkness engulfed everything. David collapsed on top of Tonya. He was unconscious. She felt his weight grow limp even as dad was still slapping his head. There could be nothing left of David. Was dad going to kill him? She was glad in some part that it was over long before they could be forced to finish, though the seconds of it had felt like hours.

Tonya could hear nothing, feel nothing. She saw only the blur of dad above them, finally stepping away from the bloody mess of his abuse. Tonya turned her head slowly toward him. She couldn’t make out his face. All she could see was the demonic, blurry, wavering outline of his seething form. With that as her last memory, Tonya tumbled into a dizzy euphoria, joined only by the wisps and ghosts that had assailed her brain earlier. Dad was gone, David was gone, Wookie’s barking had ceased. Everything had stopped at long last. She felt her very essence smile, then submerse itself in the inky waters of oblivion.

However long a time passed, Tonya could not ascertain. She may have slept an eternity, or by consequence only a moment, before soft brownish light began to creep slowly back to her fluttering eyelids. Her ears were ringing, her sight bleary. Only with effort could she manage to make out some of the sounds issuing nearby. The muffled noises of her brother in his room anguishing and crying were the first she distinguished. She took a slow, deep breath, grimaced. Her chest ached from bruises. At least dad hadn’t killed David. He was still alive, in his room, hopefully safe for the time.

Tonya tried to sit up. Her whole body trembled and cried out in pain. She rolled onto her side, coughing. She felt a sticky wetness seeping out from between her legs. She knew the sensation all too well. She cried dry tears, nothing left in her eyes to meet her needs. “Why,” she whispered to herself, chest and stomach heaving in revulsion and sorrow.

“It’s okay dear,” she heard. She looked around, found herself in her room, on her bed, naked, cold, and scared. She was alone. How had she gotten here? Had dad seen he’d gone too far? Where was he?

“Is someone there?” she asked into empty air. She felt a shiver go through her. She closed her eyes, and was greeted by the warmth of spring sunshine. Brilliant green trees rose up all around her, flowers beneath her now youthful and clean form. She was warm, and happy, and filled with a sense of peace that only came from recalling this one wonderful memory of that last picnic with mommy.

All of the smells and the sounds and the joy came racing back to her. Mommy was twirling and leaping within the flowers. Her beautiful long white dress flowed around her as if it were her dance partner, proud to be a part of her bliss as she moved and snaked through the high grasses. “Mom,” Tonya whispered weakly, reached out in front of herself. In her mind, she climbed to her tiny feet and ran after her mom into the ocean of infinite color and delicious odors. She heard David crying. He was just a baby then, and needed attention.

As she danced and twirled in the midst of the sundry of flowers and butterflies, her mom so close to her, for the first time she asked herself, where’s daddy? She looked back at David who was still crying. Was daddy supposed to be there, taking care of him? A dark figure moved swiftly behind David. Was it daddy, picking David up? Mommy screamed from behind. Tonya jerked around, but mommy was gone. She started screaming. She was so afraid. Where was mommy?

Tonya ran through the grass and flowers, gasping and yelling at the top of her lungs, “Mommy! Mommy!” As she ran, she tripped over something and fell face first to the ground. Crying profusely she rolled over and saw mommy lying still and quiet on the ground. Mommy opened her eyes and smiled. Her face contorted as she reached out to Tonya. Mommy had red all over her new white dress. Tonya crawled over to her, and into her arms.

“Run, baby! Get away from here,” mommy said so faintly, Tonya scarcely heard.

“Mommy, I’m scared!” Tonya cried.

“Hurry. Go, baby…” Mommy started to cry. “My beautiful baby boy.” Mommy looked away. “Run, you must keep your spirit free.” Hot tears ran down her cheeks, dripped from the tip of her nose.

Mommy fell asleep. Tonya shook her and shook her. “Mommy!” she screamed. “Mommy, wake up!” She was sobbing. “Please, Mommy!”

A shadow cast over her. She looked up to see daddy’s face looking down at her. David was in his arms. But daddy looked different somehow. Tonya jumped to her feet, reached up to him, “Mommy!” she screamed. “Help Mommy! She’s hurt, Daddy!”

“It’s okay dear.” Daddy knelt down to her, took her hand.

“It’s all going to be okay,” daddy cooed softly. “Things have been all wrong for so long, baby. But daddy will make everything right now. Daddy will make everything perfect.”

As daddy lifted her into his arms and began to walk away, Tonya started screaming and kicking, “Mommy! We can’t leave her!”

Daddy got down on his knees and set Tonya down right in front of him. “Mommy has been a very bad girl, honey. You know that. You’ve heard the yelling and fighting for so long, haven’t you?”

“Yes, daddy,” Tonya replied sheepishly. What was happening here, she wondered. Why was daddy doing this?

“Well, daddy had to punish her. She can’t come with us anymore.”

“No!” Tonya screamed, and bolted for Mommy. Daddy reached out and caught her.

“No!” daddy yelled. “Don’t make me punish you too! You will understand. And you will forget. Mommy has been very bad. I can’t let Mommy hurt you two anymore! Or me!”

Tonya embraced daddy and opened the floodgate of tears straining in her eyes. “Why,” she whispered in daddy’s ears. She couldn’t understand. She wanted her Mommy. It wasn’t right for her to just leave them like this.

“I know it hasn’t been this way before, but things have to change, sweetheart,” daddy tried to reassure her. “You can be a very good girl for daddy. I know you can. And I will never have to punish you like I did Mommy, will I? Yes, that will be wonderful, won’t it baby?”

“Daddy, I’m not…”

“Not now hon. But you will be. Daddy will make it so. Mommy has to go now, so I need a wonderful little girl, just like I know you can be, to take such good care of me. I know you can, sweetheart. Can’t you?” Daddy’s face was smiling and happy as he spoke to her. His voice was so quiet and soft.

“Yes, daddy,” Tonya said, not understanding really what he had meant. “I want my Mommy. Please, daddy…please…”

Tonya’s eyes opened. The room was dark. She could feel dad lying next to her in bed now, asleep. She could hear his snore. Feel his hairy legs touching hers. Smell his stench. She looked at him and cowered in disbelief. How? How could she have forgotten? What had he done to her? She couldn’t remember! Somehow, in his sick need to control and manipulate her, he had forced her to forget an entire lifetime. She looked at herself with new eyes and shuddered. Was she not supposed to look this way? Not even a girl? She got out of bed, taking the greatest of care not to awaken him; her dad, her lover, her dictator and executioner.

She hurried to the downstairs bathroom, closed the door, fumbled the lock shut, and vomited into the toilet. She sat on the icy floor, naked, her soft skin pocked with goose bumps. “My God!” she moaned. “HOW?!” She looked at her breasts, cupped them in her soft, slender hands. “How could this not be me? How? Why?” Tonya floundered for words, for coherent thoughts, for anything still solid or real that she could clamber for. There was nothing. She stood shakily to splash water into her face. Nothing was real. Dad had created this. He had recreated his child into this. As she scanned herself, her pride in her beauty disappeared. She looked more to herself now as a piece of art, a Barbie Doll, a patchwork creature derided from that man’s sickness and aberrant needs.

“How?” she cried. “How could I not know?” Even her mind was not her own. He had recreated that too, somehow. “Who am I? What…” she wept, deeper than ever before, heaving from her soul. “Mommy…” Tonya reached out as she collapsed to the edge of the downstairs bathtub.

Insanity took her, or was it clarity. She felt disconnected. Nothing about her was real, not even her body. She wasn’t thinking anymore. She wasn’t dreaming. The visions of her mommy that had kept her together all this time had been stripped from her. She was nothing. She trembled and convulsed, out of control. There was no strength in her arms and legs. They felt like jelly, amorphous and weak.

“David,” she whispered. His smiling face appeared in her mind. It sat in the darkness of her thoughts, the countenance of it changing from happiness and youth to manhood and the look of fear, shame, and sadness she had seen earlier that night. “David is still real,” she said softly to herself. “He must be.”

Tonya stood, desperation slowly returning some strength to her limbs. She stepped out of the bathroom. The cold from before was gone. She was numb now, of body and mind. Quietly she made her way to the top of the stairs that led to their bedrooms. David’s was the first door. It was open, and inside she saw him, curled in fetal position on the floor beside his bed. His face was covered in dried tears and snot. Tonya wept inwardly for him as she walked by.

The second door was dad’s. It too was opened, but the dark room inside was empty. She walked in, asphyxiation gripping her. She caught her breath without a sound, composed her emotions again, and made her way to the stolid bathroom that connected dad’s room to hers. Her mind felt as empty as her soul. She locked both doors to the bathroom and started a bath as quietly as possible. She opened the medicine cabinet above their sink and took out dad’s razor. When she closed the cabinet door, she saw herself in the mirror affixed to the front of it. She looked terrible. Hair bedraggled, eyes and cheeks stained with tears, bruises all over her chest. She had to look away. Her mother’s face mirrored in her own felt more like a curse now than a blessing. She licked her dry lips nervously as she disassembled the razor head. How many times had she been here? Had she always known deep inside all along that this was all wrong? Had some small part of her true self been there all along, trying to escape, wishing to die?

Success…a practiced hand, Tonya took the straight blade from dad’s razor and slid herself into the shallow hot water in the tub. It felt so good and soothing against her skin. Water entered her as she relaxed, reminding her of a pain she had been denying. She stretched out to full length in the tub, razor blade in hand. How could she go on? She pressed the blade against her already scarred left wrist, this time the edge from palm to elbow instead of from left to right. Her hand was shaking. She didn’t want to know any of this anymore. She couldn’t escape him, her body, her new knowledge.

Warmth covered Tonya’s legs. The water was rising up to her waist. She sighed, pressed harder with the razor blade. The edge started to bite its way into her skin. A tiny trickle of blood issued from beneath it. Soon it would slash all the way through. Hopefully this time, dad would let her die. If she could damage the vein enough, he wouldn’t be able to save her.

She closed her eyes, prepared herself. She could taste his cock in her mouth, sense its pressure at the back of her throat. She could feel and taste his cum. She could feel him thrusting into her, filling whatever hole he desired that night. She heard herself tell him how much she loved him, how happy he made her. Those words weren’t real, they were rehearsed, forced into her mind until she thought they were her own true feelings. She saw the blood soaking her mommy’s dress. She heard David crying, both as a baby and as an adult. She could feel dad’s hands groping her, pawing at her. His slavering lips and tongue soaking her flesh in his putrid spit. She watched herself in mind’s eye blossom from a confused little girl into the woman she was now, every day of her life lived in fear of being punished as Mommy had been if she didn’t always do as she was told.

Her mind was poison. Her body was a testament of the sickness of that man. Her memories no longer solaced her. How could she keep living? Crying, confused, clawing at every aspect of her life for some shred of truth yet connecting with nothing, she pressed on with the blade.

Wookie started yelping. She heard him jerking madly at his chain outside, barking, almost bellowing in frustration. Tonya relented on herself, stopped the bath water. Dad would wake up. No, Wookie, she thought. Stop, please Wookie. Dad did wake up. His cursing and swearing turned to violent throes in her bedroom. Tonya got out of the tub, stood by the door to her room from which her dad could be heard blaring obscenities at Wookie. Tonya listened intently, though the door obscured much of his words. Kill, and stupid bitch’s dog, and outlived its usefulness came through to her clearly enough.

Dad was going to kill Wookie. “No!” Tonya burst into her room screaming “No!” Without thinking, without seeing, Tonya struck at dad with both hands and both arms flailing and slashing through the air with all her might. Dad’s stunned face turned to one of horror. He grabbed at his throat for a moment, choked, then knocked Tonya to the floor with a swift left cross. Tonya scrambled into a corner, tried to get up. Her cheek was throbbing and already swelling. Her right eye was closing. He had hurt her badly with just that one blow.

Dad slumped onto the bed, grabbing viciously at his throat. Blood was oozing out thick and brown from between his fingers. Tonya watched him kick and twitch on the bed in both fright and contempt. His eyes never blinked or swerved from her. He looked at her with the anger and hatred of a rabid beast. He was clawing at her bed sheet with one hand and holding his gaping neck together with the other. Wookie was barking ferociously outside.

“I know what you did to me,” Tonya said angrily.

Dad seemed surprised, then grinned.

“How did you make me forget? How could you do this to your own son?” she was begging for answers at the top of her voice. Dad’s eyelids were closing, his grip on the bed sheets loosening. “Why!” How could she have been made to love this monster so? She feared him completely, remembering and aware that dad was not hesitant to punish the ones he supposedly loved severely for being “bad”. She had slaved herself for him under that singular fear, in every imaginable and sordid way.

Dad simply smiled at her maliciously in answer to her questions, fell back to the floor, and was silent. “No!” Tonya screamed. “You must answer me! Don’t you dare die yet!” She bounced over her bed and threw herself on top of dad. She slapped him. Again, and again she pounded on his chest, struck his silent, peaceful face with her open palm. “Wake up damn you!” she broke into tears of rage. “You can’t leave me like this! Answer me!” Wookie’s barking stopped, but Tonya knew he was safe.

Tonya wept over dad’s prostrate form, her hair shrouding his chest. She loved him and hated him all the same in that second. Imprisoned, yet free, nothing made any sense to her. She cried…and laughed. Just then David opened the door to her bedroom. Tonya started, sat up from dad, then ran to her brother. He was still naked, leaning against the edge of the doorway. His body was a circus of bruises, welts, and cuts. Tonya helped him very carefully out of the room and to the stairs.

“Dad?” David asked.

“Dad’s gone, David.” Sadness and the pleasure of release fought for control over them both as they descended the stairway to the ground floor of their home.

“What happened?”

Tonya sat David down at the dinner table, went to the kitchen for two glasses and some milk. She returned, poured milk for them both, then sat at the table next to him. The questions inside her still would not relinquish their hold on Tonya as she searched her soul for the answers. How can I live knowing what I know? Being what I am not? David could never know everything that had happened. He didn’t deserve that burden. Tonya embraced her brother as if he were her last thread of sanity. He was the only thing left in her life that was real. She couldn’t see mom’s face in the mirror anymore and think to herself how proud she would have been. Could she and David find a way to start over? Their old lives had ended, especially for Tonya. Nothing could ever be the same. One night seemed so short a time to change so much. But it would be many years before either of them would fully be able to cope with anything that had happened in it.

“David,” she said at last, “I remembered.”

David looked at her strangely. “What did you remember?”

Tonya smiled lightly at her brother, and somehow inside it occurred to her that she could live out this life somehow.

“Mommy told me before she left…no matter what,” she paused to reflect. Her mother’s face was still there, behind her eyes, beaming with pride. She could tell from that smile that she would miss her babies so much. “I must be free. For her.” They cried together, and held onto each other ever closer as their world collapsed all around them, and as a new life toiled to assemble itself from the debris.

“We will remember…” Tonya whispered to her brother. “We will…”